Awesome, thanks Shah. I read Grantland fairly often, some great writers there. Glad to see Diplomacy get a little attention, even though the article may repel as many potential players as it attracts!

Everyone who loves this game should try to get to a convention one time just to experience the environment. The face-to-face (FTF) game is markedly different from the behind a computer screen play we enjoy here. While FTF games are more difficult to arrange (alas conventions/tournaments) everyone needs to find their own comfort zone, but witnessing the dynamics of a live game will make you a better player.

I've played against Edi Birsan before. I didn't get a telephone call from him, but I could definitely see him spending hours cutting up a letter to rearrange the text. Very nice guy, but one that will scrutinize every word, and assure that you will need to look very closely at his as well.

The article probably will repel most readers, but Diplomacy is not a casual game like Clue, Trivial Pursuit, etc. Alpha nerds probably well describes a good numbers of our fellow addicts.

Great read ... for my first 30 years of this game it was all face to face, so I connected with the article

Good read! Also recommend getting some friends together and playing face-to-face, it doesn't have to be super serious. As some people I've run into seem to forget, it's a game and it's supposed to be fun!

Yeah, contrary to the article my FTF experience among friends has been one of bonding rather than something that tears friendships apart. When you're looking across the table at your buddy who just lied to you 10 minutes ago and the whole room is busting out laughing, it's hard to stay mad at the guy. The games tend to be much more fluid and forgiving, even as they are much more ruthless.

interesting read. When I was 14 I had some friends who played diplomacy face-to-face. They had made the board on the computer(since there are no diplomacy map over the Aland island) and the fleets and armies was made of papper. And they wasn't getting mad at each other they had quit fun.

That was a good article. I'd like to play a face-face-game.

really good article.

I remember back when I was learning to play Diplomacy in middle school, our first game, it was me and six of my better friends, learning in a free-hour from one of the teachers. I was Italy, my buddy Tom was Austria, and we said we'd work together.

Well as it happens, Tom was a bit gullible, as I knew from being friends with him for years, and I decided as Italy I needed to gut Austria quickly, so I stabbed him, hard. I had promised support into Greece, and I said I'd go after Munich. Hence I had armies in Tyrolia and Venice, and a fleet in Ionian.

Come the fall, his fleet goes into Greece, bouncing the Turkish army. His Budapest army, which had gone after Romania and been bounced, tried for Serbia, succeeding, and his Vienna army, which was foolishly in Bohemia (to get me Munich).

Well, by some stroke of luck, my stab worked great. His Bohemian army sat there, wasted, and I took Trieste and Vienna. My fleet grabbed Tunis.

In the end the game stopped with Austria and Germany dead, as many do. France was declared "the winner" with his 9 SCs, or maybe it was England, I forget, but my Italian party had been ruined by a Juggernaut, though I not yet knew its name.

Anyway, Diplomacy face-to-face is best when you know your fellow players, and it can be very interesting.

F2F is my favorite way to play. It's not friendship ending at all if you play with the right attitude. I make it clear before any game starts that if I don't get stabbed at least once I will be disappointed.
F2F allows for some fun strategy that can't be used online. The main ones being changing someone's orders behind their back, overhearing meetings of other players, the flying dutchman, and framing someone else doing the flying dutchman. (I don't succeed at any of these too often.)
The main fun part with f2f is physically talking to people and trying to catch hints of whether they are lying to you or telling the truth. Reading people is a lot more easy f2f than over the internet and a bigger part of the f2f game.

Oh yeah, one trick a buddy of mine used: he wrote two sets of orders, his real orders (stabbing Germany) and his fake orders (helping Germany). The German player asked to see his orders.. and he gave the fakes, and Germany was pleased.

Come the turn, this massive English stab takes 3 centers, Germany pissed, I'm laughing (Turkey) and France is nervous.